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Peadar McCann
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Gaelic footballers Darren Hughes and Mattie Donnelly are set to become stars of the small screen.
Monaghan skipper Hughes and Tyrone All Star nomination Donnelly are on the brink of PlayStation stardom after featuring on a new computer game developed in Northern Ireland.
All Star Gaelic is the latest attempt to bring Gaelic games to the gaming world, following two failed attempts in 2005 and 2007 to develop a successful computer game.
Local, developer Peadar McMahon has stepped up to the plate filling a much sought after gap in the market.
The 31-year-old Lurgan man is the founder and lead developer of independent company, MojoPin and he revealed its project that has been 12 years in the making.
“When I was at Queens studying I rang a Japanese company, Konami, to see if I could employ their soccer software as a base for a gaelic game,” he said. “That was 12 years ago and they never came back to me.”
He later developed a prototype and started his business in his spare bedroom.
“I’ve been developing it in my studio in the spare bedroom for the last six months. It has been paid for with my own hard earned cash, but the biggest moment was when we had Darren and Mattie down to Queens for the motion capture. Here we had access to millions of pounds worth of equipment.”
In the movement sensor lab, deep under the swimming pool at Monaghan, full back Darren got into the spirit of things,
“Darren hit a ball out of Mattie’s hand and it hit one of the cameras, we were all terrified we’d broken some of the really expensive equipment, thankfully we got away with it.”
The Monaghan skipper admitted he was unsure of what he was letting himself in for.
“I got a phone call asking was I interested and I thought, sure I’ll head up for a nosey and see what it’s all about. Mattie and I turned up at Queens and put on the outfits; an all black leotard and those little balls that pick up the movement.”
Darren, who is more at home working on the family farm, had so far managed to keep his potential game fame under wraps.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
“The rest of the team don’t know anything about it. Neither does my dad or mum, I didn’t tell anyone!”
With the fun stuff in the bag developer Peadar admits the next six months is going to be the most important,
“This is an extremely significant time in the process. In the following months we will be able to combine the data captured and the artwork and actually we will have something to show people.”
The game developer is confident he has a winner on his hands.
“Once the word is spread there will be people hungry for it. The market will be there if I’m looking at 50,000 sales as realistic.”
The timing seems perfect with GAA now reaching a global market thanks to matches being screened live on SKY TV.
“Gaelic is making its way into the mainstream. There are already pockets of it all over the world.
“For example I was in San Francisco to raise awareness and funding for the game and even there on the West Coast of America there were three Gaelic teams. Now with SKY involved, the game is about to go global.”
So how long do we have to wait?
“I reckon it will hit the market by Christmas next year, this is completely realistic as long funding comes through in the next 4-6 months.”
So until we can control Mattie and Darren at the flick of a button we’ll have to make do with our annual visit to Croke Park.